Archive for July, 2009

Why Allele?

Allele provides you with tools that you will find very helpful.  The two main motives for Allele developed products are:
1) To incorporate the most advanced technologies in the field
2) To provide equal utility as other companies’ equivalent products at a much more reasonable cost.

How did we do it?        By developing technologies internally, in most cases with government grant funding, by in-licensing others’ discoveries, and by listening to you, our customers.

What else do we do?      Conduct basic curiosity-driven research just like most of our customers. It helps to stay on the edge and connect to the community.

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Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 Customer Feedback, Open Forum No Comments

Allele Mail Bag: Our discovery that stem cells and other cells can be non-invasively intranasally delivered to the brain.

A few words from the blog editor:  The Allele Mail Bag is a new feature we initiated here by this post on July 20, 2009.  We like to post some of the messages that our research, business development, or customer service staff receives through Allele’s published email boxes, e.g. oligo@allelebiotech.com (for ordering any product or service), iPS@allelebiotech.com, RNAi@allelebiotech.com, FP@allelebiotech.com, Vivec@allelebiotech.com (for consulting with Allele experts on each of the focus product group. FP: fluorescent proteins.  Vivec: viral vectors).  If we find your message to be suitable as a guest post on our blog, we will ask for your permission first.

In addition to any questions about any product, service, or R&D activity that Allele may provide or perform, we also encourage you to use our communication and social networking channels to help more people become aware of your own research progress.  After all, it is by the same principle of scientific information exchange through traditional channels such as publication in journals or presentation at meetings—the better we communicate the more science benefits.

Excerpt from a recent email to iPS@allelebiotech.com, with permission from Dr. Frey:

“Hi,
I am excited to tell you that along with my collaborators in Germany, especially Lusine Danielyan MD, I have discovered that stem cells and other therapeutic cells can be non-invasively delivered to the brain using the intranasal delivery method that I developed.  The first of our papers on this new discovery was just published in European Journal of Cell Biology.  I have attached a copy of this paper.  I am hopeful that this    breakthrough, that could revolutionize the stem cell industry and make stem    cell treatments practical by eliminating the need for invasive neurosurgical implantation of cells, can facilitate the development of stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury and many other brain disorders.

Best Regards,

William H. Frey II, Ph.D., Director
Alzheimer’s Research Center
Regions Hospital
640 Jackson St.
St. Paul, MN 55101
Professor of Pharmaceutics, Neurology
and Neuroscience
University of Minnesota”

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Allele Biotech’s Box Swap Program

Allele Biotech has a special, money saving offer for you if are located in any of the following San Diego zip codes:

92014
92037
92111
92117
92120
92121
92122
92129
92130
92145

Allele Biotech’s Box Swap Program will give you cash or credit for good condition styrofoam boxes that are greater than 9 x 9 x 9 inches. Our goal is to help eliminate waste while saving you money by reusing your accumulating, unwanted styrofoam boxes. If you are located in any of the previously mentioned zip codes, give us a call and we will come to your facility at remove the unwanted boxes at no charge!

We are encouraging all types of companies to take part in this endeavor. If you are a biotech company or a loyal Allele customer you may redeem your syrofoam for credit that can be applied toward any Allele Biotech order. If you are a company that has no need for biological research reagents then you may redeem your boxes for cash!

Everyone wins with Allele’s Box Swap Program. So free up some space, eliminate waste, and earn money all with just one phone call! 858-587-6645

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Our Message to Allele’s Followers

What we at Allele Biotech see ourselves doing in the sense of fulfilling an obligation to the society and our peers in scientific research: Salvation and success through innovation and diligence, reaching for a place of efficient sustainability where monopolies do not win and ordinary people have the chance to realize their dreams.

We don’t believe in dominance by a few big boys, because we don’t believe that they can provide researchers with the best value. We want people that deal with us to see that there is room for development by an individual or a small group of highly dedicated and talented persons, as your own group in academia or a small company can do. This is the beauty of our industry and our field.

We like to see our people challenge existing doctrine and hypothesize new ones, after all, isn‘t that how we are trained through grad school and postdoc training, but somehow and somewhere it starts to seem to difficult to do, especially when you try to get a paper accepted or a grant rated among the top 10%. We don’t want to lose our edge, even if we have to learn to better place it. We will continue to move this way, and we want you to come along for the ride.

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Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 Customer Feedback, Open Forum No Comments

Stimulus money at work in labs now

Since signing into law in February, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s ~10 billion dollar extra funding to the National Institutes of Health has resulted in funding 2,346 projects (or as supplements) so far. There have been several rounds of additional grant applications including the “Challenge” and the “Grant Opportunity” or GO grants, the funding of which will start in the fall. So, if you think you are seeing the leaves on the tree moving, maybe there is a breeze. Better proof for improvement, at least of the mood, of course would be the fact that your PI’s less stiff-looking face when you put in a request for purchasing reagents.

Buzz has it that right now is the hardest time for a postpoc to move on, even though it does not feel that great staying beyond a typical few years in the current lab either. Remember, job market recovery is a delayed action part of any economic recovery. So hold on tight and look ahead.

Companies in the research supply industry, large or small, are inevitably suffering along side with academic labs as well as the drug-aiming biotech industry and R&D centers of pharmaceuticals. Invitrogen (Life Technologies) let go of people in several rounds already. Specialty companies like Glen Research, leading supplier of oligo chemicals, are also shedding employees, it seems. Allele Biotech has not and is not planning to lay off team members, but we have not been able to replace people who recently left or support part-time employees’ level of work as we wanted to.

The ARRA stimulus money through NIH will be a main life line for many of us doing biomedical research in the next few months to a couple of years, depending on how Wall Street and the capital market shape up. The number of grants and total dollars will increase, however slowly it feels. No time to pop the cord yet but at least you can plan on doing that next experiment to get the paper published sooner rather than later, perhaps buying your genotyping kits and miniprep columns from us!

Don’t overlook the deep meaning of Independence Day. Enjoy the day and celebrate our freedom. Happy Independence Day.

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Friday, July 3rd, 2009 NIH Budget and You No Comments